Alternatively Domestic
by playadeslosers
Summary: Short drabbles about Gwen and Dunc being adorably domestic - suggestions welcomed for future chapters!
1. Home-Spa Day

Duncan was _anything_ but any kind of feminine. Showing any of that in his social group would get him beat and kicked out immediately. He was as tough as tough could be. Juvie, correctional facilities, and vandalism – he'd done it all. Most of his friends had been doing things less than savory, as well.

So they'd really rag on him for having a monthly spa day, of sorts, with his girlfriend. It was just fixing chipped black nail polish (totally manly, by the way), and dyeing their hair back to neon standards. Nothing dumb like facials, but his guys would still give him a raft if they knew about it.

With foils in his relaxed mohawk and teal dye staining his shirt from helping Gwen just a moment ago with her own alternatively dyed locks. "Remember, no tellin' anyone about this," He told her as her nimble fingers shook up the bottle. "And no weird designs like last time. You don't know how hard it was to explain midnight blue crackle polish, Pasty. Had to make up some weird punk trend, and I don't even think they believed me."

"I don't see why you gotta stifle my artistic energy," She mumbled playfully, an obviously kidding smile on her face. "I think you would look good with tiny skulls, _personally_. But…whatever you say."

"Yeah, well all the guys would tell me how my old lady's got me whipped, so no sparkly shit." He meant it, but he couldn't help the grin that formed.

"Your _old lady_ is gonna give you rhinestones if you don't watch out, Mr. Big Bad."

He'd done her nails first last time, so she got her cotton swabs and polish remover ready to do his. This was fun for her! Gwen got to spend time with her boyfriend and renew her look all in one. It was a nice change from the goth clubs she dragged him to and the punk concerts he dragged her to. Sure, being out and loud was fun, but she was having just as much fun accidentally breathing polish fumes in order to get as close to his cuticles as she could. It was relaxing to lounge around in purple pajama bottoms and enjoy the warmth of her apartment's free heating.

Duncan wouldn't ever say it where anybody else might hear, but he liked it too. He liked being taken care of rather than exclusively taking care of someone else, tripping over someone's feelings. With this, the most he had to worry about was accidentally pulling her hair or getting polish remover in a cut on her finger. Even if he did, Gwen never stayed mad at him for very long. Worst punishment he could get? A teal-lipped pouty look. A pretty cute teal-lipped pouty look, too, so it was a pretty sweet punishment. His favorite part was probably when she had him lean over the bathtub to wash out the sticky, green remnants of Manic Panic from his hair. Her fingers were soft and gentle, flinching a little every time she pulled too hard; he wasn't sensitive to it, but she still felt a little badly about it. It was comforting to feel her care that much about him, about how he felt. But nobody was ever gonna know that.

As she finished up on his first hand, going over and over the spot she had trouble getting evenly, he noticed just how much he liked watching her paint. Not just his nails, mind you, but anything. He'd watched her evolve from sketching to ink drawings to all sorts of paintings, with canvases and paper all over her apartment. They covered the windows, letting colored light in, and watching her was calming. The way she made strokes with such purpose, and the look she got on her face was…well, kind of funny. She didn't know she did it, but Gwen always scrunched her nose up when she was deep in concentration. Scrunched up her nose, sometimes quirked her lips. He liked it, though! She wasn't emotionless and stoic like he'd thought of painters before. Even painting his nails, his girlfriend seemed alive and real and artistic. Not snotty and snooty and stuck-up.

"Hey, Morticia, you missed a spot."

"I don't think so…where?"

She glanced up at him just in time to see him swoop in for a kiss, effectively smudging his polish on the shoulder of her shirt.


	2. Shopping

"I've got the list."

"I'll get the cart."

"No, you won't! You go too slow. C'mon, I'm drivin' today."

With a resigned sigh, Gwen gestured to the grocery cart and stepped aside. She wasn't fully confident that Duncan wouldn't just go through the store and get a bunch of junk food, but she planned to stick close to him and swat away any booze that he tried to sneak in. Not that she was a tight-ass, but they were buying specific stuff on a budget! A _tight_ budget, considering being an artist didn't exactly have the cash flooding in.

The pair rolled into the grocery store together, looking like some low-budget comedy movie about rebels having to live in suburbia. How lame. The florescent lights that signaled their entrance to hell washed out their hair color. Shopping trips were done only when necessary, and usually by only one of them at a time (so lists and impulse buys didn't get complicated).

"What are we buying again?" Duncan asked, leaning all over the cart as he shot a glance at Gwen, who was reading the recipe off of the printer paper. It had been running out of ink, so everything was in cyan.

"We were assigned desserts," She replied simply as she wondered what the difference was between regular sugar and brown sugar. "My mom was so helpful as to print off this recipe for…brown sugar soufflés." Now, she didn't know much about baking, but she was pretty sure these were supposed to be super tough to make. Thanks, Mom.

They headed down the aisles full of soccer moms and little kids that openly stared at Duncan's pierced face and Gwen's studded jacket that read "GRAVEYARD GROUPIE" on the back, which they were used to by now. It messed with Gwen at first, but she'd learned at least one attitude adjustment from her boyfriend along the lines of "don't let mean staring get to you". Worked wonders.

"Okay, we just have two more things to get," Gwen finally announced, sighing in relief. After the whipped cream vs. whipping cream debacle, she was ready to get home and relax for a few minutes before getting elbow-deep in soufflé dishes and caramel sauce. Thank god she still had that apron her nana had gifted her with spiders printed all over it, because baking sounded messy as hell. "We need eggs and vanilla extract. Wanna split up?"

"Whatever you say, captain. Eggs are over by the fruit and stuff, yeah?"

With a quick nod, they went in separate directions. After a day like this, Gwen probably wouldn't have minded him sneaking some booze in their grocery bags. Trying to figure out if there was a difference in packed brown sugar, and if there was any other kind to begin with had been interesting. Not to mention wondering if she had been accidentally using salted butter for all of her previous, horrible baking catastrophes. She trudged down the aisle where all the little bottles of oregano and mint were, then scanned the shelves for what she needed. It was such a tiny bottle, how were you even supposed to get your money's worth from this? Oh well, she could… put it in coffee or something. Whatever normal people did with vials of vanilla.

Quickly after nabbing the second to last key to getting the hell out of the "Godforsaken Grocery Store" as she'd come to call it in her mind, she made her way over to where Duncan should have already gotten the eggs. When she arrived, her boyfriend was grinning at her proudly. Probably not for getting the eggs, though.

"Hey, babe, I nabbed some clearance liquor!" Not so loudly, she thought, but brushed it off because he seemed happier than she felt. A quick glance into the cart showed that he'd grabbed a bottle of blueberry flavored vodka, which he had mentioned to her once before was "for pussies". He obviously noted the confused expression on her face, and further elaborated, "I saw how much fun you were having today, and this…is your favorite, right? I thought it was."

With a tired laugh, Gwen wrapped her arms around him in a display of affection that was unusual for her in public. "Duncan, _you're_ my favorite."


	3. Baking

Pots and various cookware clanged throughout Gwen's tiny apartment kitchen. It had been agreed that since it was dinner at Gwen's mother's house, they'd make the dessert at her apartment. No big deal, right? Loads of people made soufflés every single day, and they all had to make their first soufflé at some point. Still, the recipe...

"Gwen, this looks _real_ complicated." His voice was uncertain as he surveyed the bright blue printer ink that displayed the instructions. He wanted to try to raise his standing with Gwen's mom, seeing as his first impression lasted about three seconds before she ran off to work or something. Ended it with a clipped "better than the last one", which he was sure was hardly a compliment. Almost one, though. He was better than whatever guy his Gwen had brought home before him. Which, to his knowledge, was her first boyfriend-turned-good-friend, Reaper. He'd seen pictures, and the guy looked scarier than he did! Which he'd never admit aloud.

Said Gwen was reaching to the top shelf of her cabinets, having had to climb on top of the stove to reach the desired soufflé pan that she had needed to buy specially for this dish - one that she wa nearly certain she'd never make again in her lifetime. It was frustrating enough that she'd spent part of her monthly paycheck in order to pay for all of this fancy stuff she didn't need, but her boyfriend had so conveniently placed it just out of her reach. With strain in her voice, she replied, "Yeah, I know. But my mom's really excited about this - she doesn't get a whole lot of time off of work." Personally? She was just happy that Duncan was even invited to the dinner. Her brother got defensive around her boyfriends, and her mom turned into an attack dog due to feeling like she was the only one that could protect her "little turtledove", as she so aptly put it.

Duncan scratched the back of his head with a sigh. Gwen didn't get to see her mom very much due to conflicting time schedules; he didn't say anything, but she seemed a lot more...family-oriented than he did. She seemed to miss her family a lot more than she let on, so he did want to try and make this nice for her. He wasn't exactly a "wine and roses" type of guy, but he could handle a family dinner without too much incident. Probably. He walked up to the stove and grabbed her by the waist, plopping her right back onto the ground with the pan in her hands.

Gwen kissed her scruffy boyfriend on the cheek, grinning just slightly. "You're all scraggly," She remarked before taking the recipe sheet out of his calloused hands. "Okay, we need to preheat the oven to two hundred and five degrees." She didn't have much experience in baking outside of the stuff that came in a box, so all of this complex stuff was totally new to her. "Next we need to...butter the pans? How do you _butter_ something?" Who decided that butter got to be a verb! She wasn't stupid, just really confused about the whole process. However, Duncan seemed to have it down. He glanced over his shoulder as she stared at the paper. "Alright, pans are buttered. What're we doing now, Chef Pasty?" Oh. He knew this stuff? That was something she hadn't known about him before. The look of confusion on her face must have been evident, because he blushed slightly and rolled his eyes, "My mom kind of made me do this stuff...sometimes. Not by choice, okay?" It made Gwen laugh as she read off the next few lines of instructions, joining in the work.

As they were nearing the end of the process, Gwen kept trying to grab at the saucepans and spatulas. "C'mon, let me help! It's my mom's dinner thing anyways! Let me fold in the caramel." It could have been the tall glass of coffee she had ingested before the baking adventure, but she was getting a little on-edge; it was completely psyching Duncan out. "Fine! You can do it." He ran a hand through his mohawk as she took over, delicately holding onto the spatula as she incorporated the sweet-smelling caramel into the mixture. She just wanted to help out, and reading instructions did not make her feel very helpful.

"There! All done."

"Good, I'll set the timer."

"It's eleven minutes."

After trotting back to the living room couch (quite pleased with herself), she heard Duncan trying to sneak up from behind her. She let him think he was sneaky and let out a surprised gasp when he assaulted the parts of her neck not concealed by her collar with teasing kisses. "I can think of a lot that can be done in eleven minutes," He murmured to her quietly, a mischievous grin spreading over his features. In reply, Gwen simply said:

"Sorry, babe. Loud noises make soufflés fall."


	4. Makeshift Rain

The sound of rain on the rooftop was silenced, living on the fifth floor of the apartments near Gwen's work. If anything she missed most about home, it was the sound of the rain. She couldn't count the times she had just sat in her room with a sketchbook, letting the sound lull her into relaxation. Sometimes, she wouldn't even try to draw, opting for the comfort of wrapping up in a lizard-printed bed comforter and falling asleep to the _tap-tap-tapping_ of the rainfall. In her apartment, she had to settle for the sound of the rain on her windows. Which was not nearly as satisfying.

She moved from her place at her window, standing in one fluid motion. Almost as if she were rain herself, she flowed over to the back of the couch. She gently dropped herself to lean over, draping her arms over her boyfriend's shoulders. She hadn't paid much attention to what he was doing, but it turned out to be carving something or other. At least the rain was making _someone_ productive.

"Babe?" She didn't notice, but Gwen had just been standing there for a few minutes in silence now. It was almost as if the rain numbed her senses, making her move in slow motion. Sluggish. All the weather, none of the calming noises.

"I'm sad." A simple response.

"Why's that?"

"Can't hear the rain as well. I wanted a top floor room when I moved here, but that would be the ninth floor. I felt that would invite trouble."

He nodded knowingly and closed up his knife, tilting his head back just enough to see her. These were pretty good days, in his opinion. No obligations, no paparazzi, nobody screaming at them for being bad people. Just nice weather, a working heater, and his girlfriend. He wasn't too difficult to please. "It would be almost as bad as hitting up the Overlook Hotel," he agreed, trying to get a smile out of her. She really was sad about this rain stuff, huh?

Gwen didn't smile (or, at least, not very much), and turned around before flopping backwards onto the couch next to him. Her knees were bent up at the top, and she smiled a little more when she saw he hadn't shaved that day. All scraggly and gross. Cute. Plus the Stephen King reference? She really knew how to pick 'em. "All work and no play makes Gwen a dull girl. No work and no play makes Gwen a _really_ dull girl." Her smile lessened after that, and she let out a rather mopey sigh.

God, he hated seeing her like this. All gloomy and...stereotypical goth. She was the better kind of goth - that was only a normal, more grey-thundercloud kind of gloomy. He wasn't the best with ideas, but he'd have to give the one on his brain a good try. After leaning down to kiss her on the cheek, he hopped off the couch and walked into Gwen's bedroom to gather supplies. He emptied out a large plastic container, stacked it inside and extra-large one, and grabbed the baseball bat Gwen kept beside her bed for protection.

A few strides put him back in the living room area, and then at the window. He jimmied it open, propping the loose (and cheap) window frame up with the baseball bat as he slipped outside with the storage containers in hand. He arranged them outside just to where the rain would hit them best (and the loudest), then got back inside before he got soaking wet. Since the floors weren't real wood, a little water wouldn't help them.

Duncan walked back over to the couch, and pushed it all the way over to the window where, thankfully, no water was coming in. He snatched up a few quilts before lifting Gwen up bridal-style off of the couch.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was hazy, but amused.

As he stepped over the arm on the couch, wobbling a little, he kept a firm grip on her. After sitting down with her wrapped up in a blanket and boyfriend-arms, he answered. "Well, it's not a rooftop. But it is rain. And you can hear it. Close enough, right?"

She cuddled in close to him, sighing in a much more contented way. "Close enough."


End file.
